Second Self
by bobbysoxer
Summary: "I mean, I know I'm not your type or whatever, but forty years from now, if we're old and alone… will you marry me?" - Amy proposes to Rory five times. T for mild sexual content.


**Disclaimer: If Doctor Who belonged to me we would have gotten a Macarena flashback. **

The first time Amy proposes they are nine years old, and Rory has run away from home. He recognizes that if he really wanted to disappear he'd go somewhere less obvious than his best friend's house, but there's something about Amelia's that feels right. He likes it there, and it's not just because of Amelia, who more often than not is more trouble than he's quite sure she's worth. But it's the house, empty save the little life carved out by Amelia, all hers. The other kids in the village avoid it, afraid of the emptiness, but Rory finds it oddly liberating, a haven from short-tempered parents, and screaming brothers who bump and jostle. At Amelia's he feels like a grown-up.

He's running away because his brothers are allowed to stay up late to watch the big game on the telly, but because he's the youngest – by nearly two years – he has to go to bed. He doesn't care much for football, really, but for some reason he feels he ought to take a stand. Her influence, probably.

Amelia's house is less than ten minutes away on foot, yet even as he reasons – comic books and a thermos of earl grey tucked in his rucksack – that he'll be back home within the hour, he feels a small thrill of excitement. He may be careful, reasoned, perhaps even overly cautious, but let it never be said of Rory Williams that he lacks a sense of adventure.

When he knocks, Amelia lets him in without question, as if she's accustomed to pale boys with inflated senses of justice showing up on her doorstep. Which, he supposes, she is, although he usually calls first. She tells him she's making cocoa, then turns and heads for the kitchen, her homemade Raggedy Doctor doll dangling from her hand. She's acting like nothing's different, which Rory finds a little disappointing, because he'd thought if she knew he was running away – like she always professes she wants to – she might be, well, proud, or something.

Only after she's set two steaming mugs of cocoa on the table does she nod at his rucksack and ask, "Running away then?"

"Yeah," he admits shyly. "It's stupid, I know."

"I think it's brave," she replies and Rory swells with pride, hiding his pink cheeks behind a slurp of cocoa and burning his tongue.

He hasn't even hit the bottom of the cup before the doorbell rings.

"We don't have to answer it, you know," Amelia tells him. "Aunt Sharon isn't home."

"No, it's fine," Rory assures her reluctantly.

"You shouldn't have come here, you know," Amelia tells him as she carries their mugs to the sink, reaching up on tip-toe to reach the faucet. "It's the first place they'd look."

"I know," Rory replies. "But I like it here. It's the opposite of my house. I wish I lived here with you," he admits without thinking. He sneaks Amelia a glance to see how she'll respond to this piece of information, but her face is has disappeared into the great bowl of the sink, nothing but two red pigtails visible above the porcelain rim.

He's surprised to hear her response rising from its depths, "Well, you will."

"I will?" Rory asks, surprised.

"One day," Amelia replies, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. The faucet stops and her smiling face pops back up. "When we're older and married."

"Oh." It's not the response Rory was expecting, but he finds he's rather pleased with it. So pleased, in fact, that he feels his cheeks growing warm. For some reason, he can't look away from Amelia's eyes. The doorbell rings again and Rory almost jumps a foot in the air. Amelia looks away quickly.

"I'd better get that, I suppose," Rory says. Reluctantly, he gathers his things from the table, slinging his rucksack over his shoulder.

"Rory?" Amelia asks, just as he turns to go.

"Yeah?"

"You will marry me, won't you?"

Rory turns back and smiles.

"Of course I will," he says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. He feels his chest swell when Amelia grins back at him. With the memory of that smile fresh in his mind, climbing into the back of his father's car doesn't feel as bad as he anticipates, and he wonders, as they pull away, if it doesn't have as much to do with the house as he'd thought.

The second time Amy proposes, they are sixteen years old, and she's just seen the end of her first serious relationship. Heartsick and weepy, she doesn't think she can put up with Mels' biting humor and "I told you so"s. She can't bear to be alone, but there's only one person she can bear to be around, so she calls Rory with a shaky voice and he shows up on her doorstep fifteen minutes later with a stack of DVDs and a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream. He takes one look at her, looking unusually small in an oversized jumper and faded grey sweats, cheeks streaked with mascara tears, and pulls her into his arms. Privately, he thinks she's the most beautiful girl he's ever seen.

Hours later, Rory's dozing on the couch in the glow of the telly, Amy's long legs stretched out across his lap while she scrapes for the last traces of ice cream with their shared spoon. Just as he is about to drift off, she asks quietly, "Rory?"

"Yeah?" he replies without opening his eyes.

"What if it never works? What if _I_ never work?"

"What are you talking about, Amy?" he asks, suppressing a yawn.

"You know, in love."

"Oh." Rory sits up a little straighter, blinking away sleep. His fingers curl around her knee where it rests against his stomach.

"It didn't work with Andrew, just like it never worked with Jeff or any of the other boys. _I _never work."

She runs a self-conscious hand through her hair, and Rory watches, mesmerized, as the coppery locks move over her shoulder, glinting dimly in the half-light.

"Sometimes it seems like you're the only boy I haven't driven away for good," she says with a small laugh. Rory laughs too, but for a different reason: because he wishes desperately that that were the truth.

Abruptly, Amy's smile fades.

"Rory?" she asks again.

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"'Course you can."

"When we're old… Like really old, say thirty, forty years from now and we're both still alone, like now," she laughs hollowly. "I mean, I know I'm not, you know, your type or whatever, but forty years from now, if we're old and alone… will you marry me?"

Rory's chest tightens. "Amy…" he begins.

"Sorry, I'm being stupid aren't I?" she laughs, and Rory slouches slowly in what he tries not to admit is disappointment. "Sweet, perfect boy like you, of course _you _won't be alone in forty years," she continues.

Rory's glad of the darkness as he feels the blood rush to his cheeks. He takes a shaky breath, and says, "No, yeah. Yeah, I will. Marry you. In forty years, or whatever. I'll marry you."

"Yeah?" Amy asks, smiling widely.

"Yeah," Rory replies, squeezing her knee reassuringly.

Amy grins, and leans down to kiss him on the cheek.

"Good."

The third time Amy proposes, they are nineteen, and it is just after their first time. They've been together nearly six months since their first, awkward dance floor kiss; one month of shyness that dissolved into two months of innocent contentment that built into three months of mounting passion that ended here, pressed together on Amy's childhood bed. He is a virgin. She is not.

They'd been planning to wait for their anniversary, in just over a week. Rory had made reservations at a posh restaurant in Coventry, and even watched his oldest brother's kids for a night in exchange for the use of his car. He was going to put on a nice suit and buy flowers and open her car door, and they were going to make love by candlelight. But instead, he's bidding her goodnight at the door to her bedroom after an ordinary Thursday night at the pub, she slightly tipsy and he still in his scrubs, and before either of them knows what's happening they're all over each other.

"I love you," he gasps, forehead resting against hers in a moment of stillness before shifting his weight to roll off of her and stare up at the ceiling, letting the newness of his situation sink in.

"Mm, I love you, too," Amy laughs breathily, pushing up on one elbow to grin down at him, her hair falling in a shimmering curtain against his shoulder. "And to think I once thought you were gay!" she adds, still out of breath but managing a cheeky raise of the eyebrow.

"What, you mean I was… I was good?" Rory asks hesitantly, searching her face for signs of sincerity.

"Rory, my love," Amy replies, leaning closer til her face is but a few tantalizing inches from his. "You were fantastic."

"I was?" Rory asks, and Amy bursts into giggles at his total astonishment.

"Seriously, Amy, stop joking around," Rory grumbles, turning his face away.

"I'm serious!" Amy laughs, shifting on top of him so she can trap his face between her hands. Partly because he's embarrassed, and partly just because he can, Rory leans up and in one swift motion rolls her beneath him, lips captured in a passionate kiss. She winds her arms around his neck, responding enthusiastically, but pulls away too soon.

"I really mean it," she tells him with a grin, tracing the side of his face with one hand. "You are very, very good at that."

"Yeah?" Rory asks, slightly more convinced and growing pleased.

"Very," she repeats, fixing him with a knowing stare. "Like unexpectedly mind-blowingly _good_. Like wow."

"Yeah?" Rory asks again, grinning.

"Yeah," she replies, indulging in the memory of their passionate embrace. Rory – her sweet, awkward Rory – had been twice as attentive and loving and genuinely passionate as any of her past boyfriends. She ought to be surprised, and yet somehow isn't at all, to find that he is a far superior lover to any and all she's encountered. "Like oh my god, will you marry me?"

"I don't know." Rory is grinning now, a mischievous sparkle in his eye. "Now that I'm this _mind-blowingly good_ lover maybe I should be playing the field."

"Oh God, I'm never going to live that one down, am I?" Amy mutters, rolling her eyes at his glee.

"No, really. I've got options, you know, I –!" He makes as if to get up but Amy knocks him forcefully onto his back.

"Don't you dare," she growls, pinning him to the bed, then kisses him ardently, just for good measure. They both know she has nothing to worry about.

The fourth time Amy proposes, they are twenty-six, and she beats him to the punch. He's been preparing carefully for months – years really – and this time everything goes according to plan. He works straight through his lunch hour so he can get home early and set up. He cooks her favorite stew, an old Scottish recipe left behind by her parents. Amy, being generally bad at all things domestic, is a rubbish cook, but Rory's not bad and he learns very quickly how to make her favorite Scottish dishes when he sees how much she opens up at the reminder of home. The cooking done, he even tidies the kitchen and manages some candles and fresh-cut flowers.

Amy arrives home after a particularly long private party thrown by particularly pervy lawyer-types, and is mid-way through letting her hair out of its constricting French twist (to go with the French maid's outfit) when she stops short.

"Oi, you, what is all this?" she asks with an extra touch of rudeness that can't quite mask the tears threatening to spill over. She dislikes emotions – in fact, she totally and completely despises them and the weird swoops and pangs they cause – but after being groped by those awful men and their awful, fat hands for nearly two hours, the sight of her boyfriend standing next to the candlelit table wearing an apron and a big goofy grin is enough to send her over the edge, just a little bit.

"What, can't a man make a nice dinner for his girlfriend?" Rory asks with a bashful, self-satisfied smile that says he knows he's done something right.

After they've eaten and Amy has cleared the dishes (one contribution she is capable of making), they take a walk down the lane. The late summer sun hangs low, spilling golden light through the trees, and glinting off Amy's hair, and she holds Rory's hand with nary a snarky comment, which is quite rare. They stop at the end of the lane, where a crumbling stone wall skirts misty grey fields, and Amy stops and looks out. If Rory had to guess, he'd say she was seeing a different landscape entirely. He wraps his arms around her waist, and she rests against his chest as they stare out together over the fields.

"Amy?" Rory asks after they've been silent for a few minutes.

"Hmm?" she hums in response.

"Are you happy?" he gulps.

"'Course I am," she replies nonchalantly, gaze still fixed on the distant horizon where across the fields rows of triangular trees abut the sky in a jagged line like teeth surrounding the grassy mouth of the world. It's incredible how much smaller the Earth feels now that Rory knows there's more out there.

"Really?"

"Really," Amy laughs, twisting a bit to press her face into Rory's neck, depositing a kiss at the corner of his jaw. "Why?"

"Because I'm really, really happy," Rory replies, nervously chewing on his lip as Amy registers his serious tone and turns in his arms to look up at him. "You're the most important person in my life, Amy, you always have been," he continues, pulling a hand from her waist to cup her cheek. "Being with you is the best thing that's every happened to me." He's feeling a little teary which is beyond embarrassing in its total not-at-all-manliness, although he supposes that if Amy had wanted manliness she'd be having this conversation with someone else. "Amy, I don't ever want that to end," he continues, feeling with his free hand for the box in his back pocket. "And – "

"Marry me, Rory," Amy interrupts suddenly.

Rory feels rather as if his heart is making a desperate attempt at escape out his throat, but a sudden surge of _no fair_ shoves it back down.

"No!"

"What?" Amy asks, taken aback.

"No, you can't just propose like that!" Rory insists, annoyed. "I'm supposed to propose! I _am_ proposing!"

Now it's Amy's turn to feel her heart skip a beat.

"Y-you are?" she asks.

"Yes! I just hadn't gotten to that part yet," Rory tells her, exasperated. "But, here, see!" For proof, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the velvet box, shoving it under her nose.

"Can I… can I look at it?" Amy asks rather quietly.

"Of course," Rory replies, nervous.

Amy flips open the lid with a pop, and gives a small gasp. For the second time that night, tears well in her eyes, and Rory tries again.

"Amy," he begins shakily. "For twenty-five years you have been the only girl I've ever noticed, and the only woman I've ever wanted. I love you so much, Amy." He takes a shaky breath. "So, um, what do you say?"

Eyes still fixed on the diamond, his glittering symbol of his devotion to her, Amy barely let's Rory finish before repeating, "Marry me, Rory."

She looks up at him, and Rory is stunned by the intensity in her glassy brown eyes.

"Yes," he gasps without thinking and Amy laughs in delight and throws her arms around his neck.

The fifth time Amy proposes, they are twenty-eight, or maybe twenty-nine, or thirty-one – after years in the TARDIS it's hard to tell – and they are just beginning to pick up the pieces.

"I can see you," she points out from just within the door of her home – _their home_, once again – after a madman in a blue box and a brush with Dalek-induced death has brought them together once again.

"Okay," Rory replies, stopping his celebratory dance mid-move and dashing quickly after her.

She stands waiting in the foyer, a huge grin on her face, which he returns shyly. A hundred different sentences stand poised on his lips; how agonizing it had been to be apart from her; how the long nights had stretched out before him like his shadow at sunset, empty and devoid of warmth; how he's so happy right now he could cry; but not a single sentence properly communicates everything he feels in this moment. A part of Rory wants to stay rooted to the spot, just to stare at her, drinking in the incredible sight of creamy skin and fiery locks and softly glowing eyes. A larger part of him wants to throw himself full-force across the room and into the arms of this woman he can't quite believe he gets to call his. Again.

Instead he takes it slow, approaching her and taking her hands in his. Amy smiles, ducking her head as their fingers wind lazily together, palms pressing. Rory lifts one hand and presses a soft kiss her palm, her knuckles, the inside of her wrist. Amy let's out a small sigh. Rory drops her hand, and instead sweeps the hair off her shoulder, kissing the side of her neck as he eases off her jacket, lips moving to her shoulder.

"Rory, what are you doing?" Amy laughs quietly as his lips find the tip of her nose, her cheekbone, the sensitive spot beneath her ear.

"Isn't it obvious?" Rory replies, lips warm in the crook of her neck. "I'm crossing off my mental list of all the parts of you I swore I'd kiss if I ever got the chance again."

His lips land softly on her forehead, and Amy's eyes flutter closed.

"I think you're forgetting one," she murmurs with a smile as he kisses each eyelid, face hovering inches from hers.

"I was saving the best for last," he counters as his lips close over hers.

Minutes later, as he's pressing her to the mattress with the intent of kissing several other areas that had been previously inaccessible, Amy pushes him away.

"Rory, wait," she gasps, hands on his shoulders. "There's something I have to ask you first."

"What?" Rory asks distractedly, turning his head to kiss his way down the arm holding him off.

"Seriously, Rory, it's important!" Amy insists, giving him another shove. Reluctantly, Rory rolls off of her and onto his side, head propped on one elbow.

"What is it?" he sighs.

Amy fixes him with a serious gaze, which Rory does his best to match, reaching down to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Will you marry me?" Amy asks. Rory starts to laugh.

"You're laughing!" Amy gasps, insulted. "Why are you laughing?"

"It's just… That's all?" Rory chuckles.

"What do you mean, that's all?" Amy asks, taken aback. She sits up, pulling the sheet around her. "Are you saying you don't want to marry me?"

"Of course not," Rory insists, grinning. "I would love to marry you." He gives another chuckle, then sits up, and takes her face in his hands, eyes serious. "Amy Pond I would marry you every day for the next two thousand years if I could," he tells her, and Amy's breath catches in her chest.

"It's just," Rory continues in a practical tone, "that we already are."

Amy frowns. "We already are what?"

"Married," Rory tells her.

"But I signed those divorce papers!" Amy insists.

"Well then," Rory replies. Leaning in closer like he's sharing a secret, he rests his forehead against hers. "It's a good thing I didn't."

**Thanks for reading! Reviews and favorites feed my soul.**


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